24.7.09

Marin Marais(1656-1728) was a French composer and viol player. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe for 6 months. He was hired as a musician in 1676 to the royal court of Versailles. He did quite well as court musician, and in 1679 was appointed "ordinaire de la chambre du roy pour la viole", a title he kept until 1725.

He was a master of the basse de viol, and the leading French composer of music for the instrument. He wrote five books of Pièces de viole (1686-1725) for the instrument, generally suites with basso continuo. These were quite popular in the court, and for these he was remembered in later years as he who "founded and firmly established the empire of the viol" (Hubert Le Blanc, 1740). His other works include a book of Pièces en trio (1692) and four operas (1693-1709), Alcyone (1706) being noted for its tempest scene.

As with Sainte-Colombe, little of Marin Marais' personal life is known after he reached adulthood. Marin Marais married a Parisian, Catherine d'Amicourt, on 21 September 1676. They had 19 children together.

Marais and his music were featured in the film Tous les matins du monde (1991), an atmospheric, meticulously imagined life of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe. Marais' music figured prominently in that film, including his longer work Sonnerie de Ste-Geneviève du Mont-de-Paris (1723). A recording of the Sonnerie performed on a Fairlight synthesizer was used in the cult classic film Liquid Sky.

The 700 billion dollar bailout. People living on the streets with stolen grocery store shoppingcarts for homes. Years of greed and lies. Years of money sucking speculation. The editor of TheWall Street Journal warns that bailout plans steal from future generations. He calls it “childabuse” to focus attention, compares it to telling a bed time story to his children:“Someone is going to take your piggy bank.”The greed advocates blame people who can’t pay their home mortgages.I teach in expensive art schools that are surrounded by homeless people. I’ve seen thiscontrast for over a decade. I decided to draw these things, these people, the greed. Started inLas Vegas where greed should have been evident. It wasn’t. Gamblers there were petty. Athome in San Francisco, I began to study the shopping cart people. They were zombie like, theliving dead. They were poor, it seemed to me, though I’m told that most are mentallydisturbed, many are drug addicted. It doesn’t matter. I’ll draw them.“Homeless zombies are coming to take your piggy bank”, I heard the man saying to his child.I knew where those people lived. In the trash strewn lots behind my art schools. Places wherethe homes had no mortgages because they were made of cardboard. A song had tuned me into cardboard towns. “…writes the last shall be first and the first shall be last… on a cardboardbox beneath the underpass”. Bruce was right about cardboard boxes. I saw them everywherethe homeless people congregated. Cardboard towns. I heard the Wall Street man’s bed timestory again.“Homeless zombies from cardboard town are coming to take your piggy bank, Charlie.”Charlie asked his dad to give his piggy bank to the zombies. “Why, Charlie?”. “I like zombies”,Charlie said.This was in my imagination; but the cardboard towns were real. I had seen them. Almost everyday. When I was fortunate enough to be asked by Bert Green to do some drawings, it seemedlike they should deal with these subjects that had been on my mind. I called the whole groupof them… Cardboard Town.

Century Guild brings legendary multi-media artist Dave McKean to America for an extremely special and extremely limited engagement, presented at the historic Portage Theatre in Chicago! "Nitrate and Kinogeists" will display both Century Guild's inventory of historically significant and undeniably beautiful silent film posters, most of which have been lost and unseen by the public before now, as well as McKean's latest paintings from his haunting current body of work, Nitrate, inspired by the silent era of cinema.

The two-day event features screenings of silent films that have inspired McKean, live performers, and other special surprises to be revealed. Friday the 17th begins with an artist's reception at 6pm and concludes with a showing of F.W. Murnau's 1926 Gothic masterpiece, Faust at 9pm. On Saturday, there will be a special screening at 9pm of Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman's feature film for the Jim Henson Company MirrorMask with McKean himself introducing. McKean's rarely seen short films will precede. Admission is $18 day/$30 for the weekend, 6pm- midnight.

Original artworks and limited edition prints of both Dave McKean's artworks and the rare silent film posters on display will be available for sale, as well as the exhibition catalogue "Kinogeists", with text by Thomas Negovan and introduction by Dave McKean.

It is speculated by various scholars that Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe was of Lyonnaise or Burgundian petty nobility; and also the selfsame 'Jean de Sainte-Colombe' noted as the father of 'Monsieur de Saint Colombe le fils'. This assumption was erroneous as proved by subsequent research taken on by Jonathan Dunford in Paris [1] In fact he was probably from the Pau area in southernmost France and Protestant; his first name was "Jean". His two daughters were named Brigide and Françoise. Sainte-Colombe was vastly celebrated as a veritable master of the viola da gamba, for he did not merely master the instrument, but also improved upon it: he is acclaimed as having added the seventh string (AA) on the bass viol.

In accordance with the celebrated aloofness of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, he is claimed to have performed only occasional concerts and exclusively at his home, in consort with his two daughters, whom he had trained. Aside from them, Sainte-Colombe's students included the Sieur de Danoville, Desfontaines, Méliton, Jean Rousseau, and, most notably, Marin Marais, who wrote, Tombeau pour Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe in 1701 as homage to his instructor.

Amongst the extant works of Sainte-Colombe are sixty-seven Concerts à deux violes esgales, and over 170 pieces for solo seven-string viol, making him the most prolific of French viol composers before Marin Marais.

In 1991, Alain Corneau directed a film inspired by the life of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe entitled Tous les matins du monde, with Jean-Pierre Marielle as Sainte-Colombe and Gérard Depardieu as the aged Marin Marais.